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An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

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Re: An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

#131

Post by davikr »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #100
copperx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where do they fail? What does a good stethoscope bring? better and clearer amplification?

Yeah, that comment also sent off internal alarms for me also. It would be a great blog post (or YouTube video) for someone to buy a bunch of stethoscopes and objectively test them. I would bet that there is a 10 USD model that is 98% as good as 200 USD models from 3M Littmann. And similar to the neverending arguments about "premium high-fidelity stereo equipment", I bet most doctors cannot tell the difference between…

Check "An in vitro acoustic analysis and comparison of popular stethoscopes" [0]. There's a $8 stethoscope - Mabis Spectrum, with great performance, according to this study.

[0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6339642/

Re: An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

#132

Post by dlcarrier »

f1shy wrote: post #112
hex4def6 wrote: post #66

Hmmm. Looking at: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/... I'm not sure I believe the graphs. For example, here's another frequency response chart of some stethoscopes: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-Frequency-response-of-... How is it that professional stethoscopes can be that different, and yet this 3D printed one can match a gold-standard one almost exactly? From what I can tell there…

You can measure all the parameters you want. The question is: does it really matter? I know many doctors, and one of my favorite questions is about stethoscopes: I have unanimously the answer "I could just roll a piece of paper and if the room is quiet enough, I can do my work". My grandpa used one made out of wood, just a cone. Once, I was fascinated by a Littmann, with bluetooth audio, I told a friend doctor, that…

Handling recorded data opens up more paths to a lawsuit than it heads off.

Re: An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

#133

Post by ErroneousBosh »

Animats wrote: post #129
throwaway2037 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up next: 3D metal printed version!

Something I'd like to see from the hobbyist community: DIY injection molding. Injection molding is a process where the first one is a huge amount of work, and then you just bang them out for a few cents each. Which is why most of the world's cheap stuff is injection molded. TechShop used to have the machine for it, but it was very rarely used. The injection molding machine was about the size of a benchtop drill press…

Isn't the pressure required to deal with injection moulding kind of ridiculous, and you need to get the die stupidly hot?

Re: An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

#134

Post by throwaway2037 »

davikr wrote: post #131
throwaway2037 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that comment also sent off internal alarms for me also. It would be a great blog post (or YouTube video) for someone to buy a bunch of stethoscopes and objectively test them. I would bet that there is a 10 USD model that is 98% as good as 200 USD models from 3M Littmann. And similar to the neverending arguments about "premium high-fidelity stereo equipment", I bet most doctors cannot tell the difference between…

Check "An in vitro acoustic analysis and comparison of popular stethoscopes" [0]. There's a $8 stethoscope - Mabis Spectrum, with great performance, according to this study. [0]: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6339642/

Hat tip! I found their Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mabis/page/7C938264-7E20-4C0A-...

Very cheap, indeed.

Re: An open-source stethoscope that costs between $2.5 and $5 to produce

#135

Post by Animats »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #133
Animats wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I'd like to see from the hobbyist community: DIY injection molding. Injection molding is a process where the first one is a huge amount of work, and then you just bang them out for a few cents each. Which is why most of the world's cheap stuff is injection molded. TechShop used to have the machine for it, but it was very rarely used. The injection molding machine was about the size of a benchtop drill press…

Isn't the pressure required to deal with injection moulding kind of ridiculous, and you need to get the die stupidly hot?

Yes, and yes. Yet most of the world's cheap plastic stuff is made that way. Here's the hobbyist version.[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-tZ4l6tXPw

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